Video: Do you have psychic ability?

Is it really possible to communicate with the dead and intuit thoughts of the living? Do you have the pyschic power to right wrongs and relieve the grief of those whose loved ones have crossed over to the other side? Author Jeffrey Wands says yes in "The Psychic in You: Understand and Harness your Natural Psychic Power.” Wands was invited on the “Today” show to explain what it means to hone psychic power. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

Your Psychic Ability
We are all psychic, but that doesn't mean we all come into our psychic ability at the same time — or that we all accept that ability. Psychic ability can emerge, like other talents, at any point in your life. For me it was when I was young, for others it may be in response to stress, or it might have a physical trigger, like an accident. The most important thing to cultivating the psychic in you is first to recognize its presence. Only then can you begin to hone it.

For starters, ask yourself some questions. Sit down in a quiet spot and think back over your life and try to remember experiences that were psychic in nature.

Were there times in your life when you unaccountably just knew something?

Have there been instances when you modified your behavior for no logical reason — with important results?

Was there a time when you believed that you had a psychic dream?

Did you ever dismiss a color or light that perhaps might have been an aura?

Have you seen the dead or signs of them? Did they speak to you?

Have you ever dreamed about an event that had nothing to do with you — and then learned it came true?

Have you ever thought that you had a sixth sense about people?

Have you ever made a successful business decision based on a hunch?

Have you ever known the phone or doorbell was going to ring — and then it did?

Recalling such things will not be easy and, indeed, you might find yourself looking for a psychic needle in a haystack. Our brains are filled with millions of experiences. Sorting through them to discern what's psychic and what's not is going to take effort. You'll have to think about it, so try not to get discouraged when you don't come up with something right away. Be willing to think about it again — and again.

Some people, of course, will not want to do it. Not because they dislike hard work (though some do), but because they'll have rejected the whole notion of being psychic. These are the same people — and I don't mean to criticize, just tell the truth who could never imagine that the world was round, or that men could fly, or that a living creature could be created by cloning.

Years ago I was subjected to a blistering attack by a skeptical radio talk show host named Candy Jones, who questioned whether everyone has psychic ability. My answer — still my answer to skeptics — is a question: How can you say it doesn't exist unless you try to experience it yourself? If you are not willing to try, then you have no factual basis for your conclusion. To put this another way, don't decide it before you try it.

One question I frequently get is if I'm so psychic why don't I guess the lottery numbers. My answer is that emotion gets in the way. I would love to win the lottery, but I could never approach it calmly and coolly, which is required for good psychic work.

Emotion colors and modifies our feelings and thoughts, and it interferes with psychic energy. If we could all just have psychic insight, which is cool and quick and very objective, we'd all be rich. Plus — and this is important — being psychic entails accountability. When you enhance your psychic powers you automatically take on some special responsibility because, for one thing, you will be seeing intensely private things about people, things that must stay private. Ethics demands it. When someone comes into my office, for example, everything they say — and I say — stays in that room unless they give me permission to reveal it.

Déjà Vu

We're all born psychic, and our psychic abilities can show up at any time in our lives.

Being psychic is all about receiving information without the use of regular thought processes. This information is contained in soul energy that comes to us through conscious and unconscious perceptions.

Conscious psychic perceptions are thoughts that pop into our heads. We just know things. We may describe these perceptions in various ways, such as "a feeling," "a gut instinct," or "it's just something I sensed." But if you examine the perceptions you'll see that they're cool and quick and have little if anything to do with emotion, which is hot and often relates to desire perception.

Unconscious perceptions are psychic thoughts we are not aware of. They enter our minds surreptitiously, and influence our decisions in significant ways. Besides not being aware of them, we have no choice between action and inaction. We are, in a way, forced to do whatever the unconscious perceptions require us to do.

Auras are halos or clusters of light that reveal a person's essence, including health and character. They change according to emotional or physical states, and the changes can occur quickly or over a long period of time.

The dead speak to us telepathically, which means that a thought or cluster of energy in their spirit can be transferred to us. Our sixth sense — the psychic mechanism in our brains — picks the signals up like a radio receiver and translates these messages so that we can understand them.

Psychic information is often imparted to us in dreams, when our defenses are down. Psychic dreams normally occur soon after someone crosses over, but they can occur before as a premonition. Psychic dreams are vivid or contain unusual colors, and they may also have a special impact on the dreamer.

To start to get a handle on your psychic side, review your own life for psychic experiences. Recognizing that you have a psychic side is key to developing it and using it.